My dream? Education, freedom and humanity for all women in Morocco

Hind @ Maastricht

If everything was possible, what would you do?

Well a big thing for me is Morocco. My parents are Moroccan, so I am too, but I feel privileged that I was born and grew up in Italy. 

The situation is not very good in the country of my roots, especially for women. There are regions and villages, like where my parents come from, with very closed minded people. It is so weird to me that girls who are only 17 years old have to marry, don’t go to school, have no work because they don’t have qualifications as if they don’t have a purpose in life. They are humans too. I feel liked these girls must have the same opportunities as me, and I’d like to help them in a concrete way, not just by hoping things will happen.

Oe, dat raakt me en ik ben benieuwd hoe ze dat wil doen.

I have to finish school first, and then start small and realistic with an organization or something in the village of my parents and go bigger and bigger from there. The girls I want to work with need to have the drive, and need to want to go to school and break the circle.

People always told me that it is impossible, but I think I can make it work. It is something that I want to do and care about. The idea of going to school is already a really big thing over there. I can be social worker and teach. I like to know more about these girls and hear their stories.  Sometimes we forget that we are all human and everybody has their own feelings and their own lives and some people just need to be listened to.

And to get the women out of their isolated state? Vraag ik haar.

Yeah! Hind raakt enthousiast. Because I feel like they brainwash themselves in a way. They are already born in that society where everybody believes in the suppression of women. They live it because they see their mothers, their aunts, other girls living it and they think that this is their place in life too. If they see a women with an education because they had the chance to grow up somewhere else, they think it is not supposed to be like that. It’s not the role of a woman to have a purpose. But that is definitely not true.

I know that because it is what my aunts find about my super independent mother. My mother literally wearing pants is too much for them and the whole thing is so weird to me and I only realized it in the past few years. 

So your mother was a rebel too?

Yes, when my mother, the youngest of 9 was born, my grandparents brought her to Italy. They helped her a lot. She doesn’t read or write Arabic and she is completely different from all of her siblings. She went to school and started working to help her parents. She was the first woman in our family to drive, and I remember how my cousin was angry that my mom did not want to hand over her car to him when we where visiting the family. He was angrily threatening to go to my dad, because that was the man in our house. And that man would tell her her place. It seems like such a small thing, but it is so big.

My dad escaped too. He went in the army only for a week. What they told him about how to treat normal people was horrifying to him. So he dropped out and moved to Italy.

It was my dream to go to an American college in Morocco, my homeland, stay on campus just like you see in the movies. Discovering the country and with my big dream in mind it would all come together, but my dad said it was not safe for woman.

I’m happy that I’m here instead. In my 18 years everything went good, even after all the dark times when I did not trust life, everything went good. There is always a solution for me, someone to help me. That is what I mean by being privileged. I have the chance to help myself and later also these girls and I should do it.

What my biggest fear is? Being alone. I spent my teenage years when I was 14, 15 super emo and on my own. And then I released that I’m a super social person and that I love to talk to people. I love the interaction between people when they meet for the first time. Everybody is curious and asking questions. I LOVE that. Before you know it you walk into someone that is so different but on the same wavelength. That is so super nice. Ever since I’m here I’m making friends. I’m happy.

Hind is studying Arts and Culture.

Translation: I cannot catch you in one image. You sparkle, your photo asks for movement, expression, dynamics. I see lost innocence (difficult to translate). I hope you dance. You are creative, beautiful, vulnerable. There is a diamond hidden inside that you may show/ may be seen.